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The Nature/Nature Debate in Decline

Over the last 40 years or so, there has been a heated denial by advocates of
nave environmentalism that there is any genetic basis for group differences in
mental ability. For well over 100 years, the average White IQ has been about 100
and the average Black IQ has been 85. Intelligence tests of course can change
over time, and people can learn how to take them. But for 100 years, the
standard deviation between Blacks and Whites has remained about 1 (15 IQ
points).

I have tried to point out that this debate should really look at the extremes.
That is, how can environmental factors alone account for the three standard
deviations between the average Ashkenazi Jewish IQ of 115~117 and the African
sub-Saharan average intelligence of 70. This comparison is usually ignored, with
the battle line drawn around usually just Blacks and Whites.

The battle however is over, and it is only the "inquisitional intent of its
political correctness" (O'Meara, 2004) that sustains the irrational stance of
the detractors trying to hold back behavior genetics, pharmacogenomics, forensic
medicine, psychometrics, genetic engineering, etc. This flood of research is
overwhelming the holdouts in the social sciences, anthropology, and some
psychologists still trying to deny that humans are just like all other
animalsboth genes and the environment are important.

Since the egalitarians have little to show in terms of researchthat is that
environmental factors can account for the difference in average mental ability
between racesthey have resorted to attacking behavior genetics in terms of
scientific methodology rather than on research data. That is, using the
philosophy of science rather than scientific research to put the genie back in
the bottle.

The book Making Sense of Heritability by Neven Sesardic, 2005, not only
points out the errors of those trying to find methodological errors in behavior
genetics, he goes even further in advocating sound reasons why racial profiling
is perfectly rational, why a person's biases are irrelevant to scientific
research, etc. (Two other good books are Wrestling with Behavior Genetics:
Science, Ethics, and Public Conversation edited by Parens, 2006 and Genes
and Behavior: Nature-Nurture Interplay Explained by Michael Rutter, 2006.)

Sesardic starts out the book with a good overview of heritability, explaining
the difference between broad and narrow heritability and the components used by
behavior geneticists to determine heritability. But the best parts of the book
are his insights into how genes and environment interact, and how attacking
genetic influence often undermines the radical environmentalists' positions. "It
is hence curious to see heritability attacked by people who want to emphasize
the importance of environmental influences. For, if their criticism succeeds in making the heritability
methodologically suspect or scientifically useless, they are thereby
pulling the rug from under their own feet: they have then no right to speak
about the environmental impact on phenotypic variation, either. A
concept complementary to a meaningless
concept is itself meaningless."

Throughout the book he shows how almost unbalanced some of the attack dogs for
environmentalism become, unable to see clearly. "More
worrying, however, is when the same mistake is repeated by contemporary philosophers who are trained to
pay attention to results of the relevant empirical research. Philip
Kitcher, relying on a paleontologist and two philosophers as his sole
authorities on the research on human cognitive
abilities, proclaimed general intelligence a 'myth' (Kitcher 1985: 200-201). To see how far off-base his judgment is, notice that the
American Psychological Association's task
group on intelligence stated that the theory of general intelligence is 'the most widely accepted current view' (Neisser
et al. 1996: 81). Also, g is regarded as 'perhaps the most replicated
result in psychology' (Deary 2000: 318), and as 'probably the best measured and most studied human trait
in all of psychology' (Gottfredson
2002: 25). Another prominent researcher on psychology of intelligence calls the
general intelligence factor 'certainly the most robust phenomenon in the social
sciences,' and adds: 'Despite torturous method of factor analysis, attacks from
outraged critics and even long periods
of being ignored, g [general intelligence] just keeps reappearing like the insistent relative that won't go away'
(Detterman 2000: 136). In a recent
conference attended by leading experts on human intelligence, Michael Rutter, who is known for his moderate views,
said:
'All of us
accept [g's] reality. It is not
merely a statistical artifact, rather, it really does represent
something that is biologically important.'"(Rutter 2000: 282italics
added)

Later Sesardic asks "Why do the
philosophers present the research on g and its heritability as a failure and an
irrational enterprise, despite plenty of evidence that it is in reality a bustling and fruitful
research program? If we accept Paul Meehl's diagnosis of why the very idea
of general intelligence still faces obstinate resistance, there are three
possible explanations of philosophical
g-phobia: 'A century of researchmore than that if we start with Galtonhas resulted in a triumph of
scientific psychology, the foot-draggers
being either uninformed, deficient in quantitative reasoning, or
impaired by political correctness.'"(Meehl 1998)

It is fairly certain that political correctness is the closest reason, but it
goes even farther than that. It is none other than a struggle against the West
and it accomplishments, values, and unique gene pool. If Whites ever again
embrace a more communal, identarian, or particularistic worldview where they
prefer their own kin to others, liberalismegalitarianism will be rejected as
normative and not scientific.

Gould's book The Mismeasure of Man is considered by Sesardic, and he
notes, "More to the point, however, Gould's central argument against hereditarians
happens to be based on a misunderstanding of the position he is criticizing. He
says: 'a reified Spearman's g is still the only promising justification for
hereditarian theories of mean differences in IQ among human groups . . . The
chimerical nature of g is the rotten core of Jensen's edifice, and of the entire
hereditarian school' (Gould 1981: 320). In reality, Jensen's views on the
genetic explanation of racial differences in IQ are
totally independent
from the question whether there is only one
factor of intelligence or more factors. Here is what James Flynn, a consistent
critic of Jensen, had to say on the matter: 'Gould's
book evades all of Jensen's best arguments for a genetic component
in the blackwhite IQ gap, by positing that they are dependent on the concept of g as a general intelligence
factor. Therefore, Gould believes that if he can discredit g, no more
need be said. This is manifestly false. Jensen's arguments would bite no matter
whether blacks suffered from a score deficit on one or 10 or 100 factors. I
attribute no intent or motive to Gould, it is just that you cannot rebut
arguments if you do not acknowledge and
address them.'" (Flynn 1999a: 373)

Sesardic goes on to explain that critics claim that heritability is meaningless
because genes and environments interact. But he points out that rigorous
research has shown genotypeenvironment interactions in infancy do not account
for much variance. He notes that, "The idea that the effect of changing one
factor always depends on what
is happening to other factors is an empirical claim, and a demonstrably false
one at that. A dramatic refutation is what happens with genetically modified
organisms, where particular genes often continue to have the same effect even
after being transplanted across
species and placed into a drastically different genetic and environmental
context."

Many times over, Sesardic points out that if we accepted the methodological
objections against behavior genetics, the same impact would fall on the social
sciences, adversely impacting all of science. He also notes that to be
scientifically rigorous, social scientists should consider the impact of genes,
not just environments like they so often do. On the other hand they will
criticize behavior geneticists for assuming genetic influence while ignoring
environmental influence on phenotype when in fact they do not. Behavior genetics
looks both at genetic and environmental contributions equally, replicating their
empirical studies many times over. Sesardic notes on what Jensen has termed "the
sociologist's fallacy,": "Among sociologists, in particular, there is a tendency
to interpret the correlation between a social variable and phenotype
as a causal relation, without even considering the possibility that genetic influences might be behind the
correlation, making it completely
bogus."

As an example he explains, "The inference to the truth of the environmental
explanation is premature here because
the genetic hypothesis can also account for the decrease in the IQ difference between the two
groups in this situation. For, it may
be that matching whites and blacks on SES has the consequence that the two
groups are matched on genetic characteristics as well. If that is the case, it
may be that it is the genetic similarity that causes IQ similarity. Without more
evidence there is no way to choose between the two possible explanatory
hypotheses." He then gives several other examples of the sociologist's fallacy.

Sesardic then takes on several researchers and philosophers who have
tried to claim that Jensen was attributing the difference in intelligence
between racial groups simply from the fact that each group individually had a
high heritability for intelligence. Sesardic then goes into Jensen's (and cites
from The Bell Curve where the same claim was made) written work and shows
that what he claimed was this: Given that there is a high degree of heritability
for intelligence with two racial groups, and given that measured average IQs
differ between the two groups, and that there are numerous independent empirical
research programs on the cause of the difference in intelligence showing it to
be genetic, then it is reasonable to assume that the between group heritability
IS NOT ZERO. That is a very modest claim, and leaves room for an environmental
explanation for the differences in intelligence.

Sesardic seems to have read every work produced by scientists and science
philosophers on the naturenurture or IQ wars. This is a good example how narrow
minded or shallow these people are, "In this
connection, it is interesting to note that several authors who strongly disagree with Jensen (Longino
1990; Bowler 1989; Allen 1990; Billings et al. 1992; McInerney
1996; Beckwith 1993; Kassim 2002)
refer to his classic paper from 1969 by citing the volume of the
Harvard Educational Review
incorrectly as "33" (instead of "39"). What
makes this mis-citation noteworthy is that the very same mistake is to be found
in Gould's Mismeasure of Man
(in both editions). Now the fact that
Gould's idiosyncratic lapsus calami gets repeated in the later sources is either an extremely unlikely
coincidence or else it reveals that
these authors' references to Jensen's paper actually originate from their
contact with Gould's text, not Jensen's." Referencing a source but using
other text for the citation is considered improper in science. If you critique a
paper, book, etc. you must read the original if you are going to cite the paper
or make claims about what the author actually says. Otherwise you cite the
secondary source and must beware of its accuracy.

To recap Jensen's argument: a high within group heritability of IQ among both
Whites and Blacks, plus empirical datamainly about the relation of certain
environmental variables and IQleads to an expectation that there is a non-zero
between group heritability. The expectation follows from evolutionary theory, "'In
nature, characteristics that vary
genetically among
individuals within a population also
generally vary genetically
between
different breeding populations of the same
species.' [Jensen as quoted by
Sesardic] He [Jensen] suggests that, as a rule (with almost no exceptions), high WGH
of a trait is in nature accompanied by non-zero BGH, and he moreover
states that this strong empirical association is regarded as a well-established
fact by geneticists. These claims were
never seriously disputed either by Lewontin or by philosophers of science opposing hereditarianism. However,
Jensen warns explicitly that even if
the general probabilistic relation between WGH and BGH is conceded, high WGH
still does not allow any determinate conclusion about BGH with respect to a
particular trait: additional
empirical evidence is necessary. He
[Jensen] concludes the relevant section with a cautionary remark: 'As I have
pointed out elsewhere, other
methods than heritability analysis
are required to test the hypothesis that
racial group differences in a given trait involve genetic factors and to
determine their extent.'"

Given these facts and the empirical
evidence, Jensen then asks for empirical proof that shows environmental factors
alone can account for the average differences in intelligence. The first of two
types of environmental explanations is called variable environments.
Given that the heritability of intelligence is at least 70% in adulthood, the
difference in environments between Blacks and Whitesthings like nutrition,
schooling, SES, etc.would have to vary by 1.82 standard deviations. That big of
a difference between each population group's environments just does not exist.

"The second strategy tries to explain the between-group difference by postulating a
factor that has no within-group variance but which is consistently present in
one group and consistently absent in
the other one. Following Jensen, I will label this kind of environmentalist
explanation 'X-factor theory.'" The most common example used has been two pots
of plantsone pot is pure sand and the other pot is good growing soilwhich
means that heritability of say plant height in each pot is 100%, while
heritability between the two pots of plants is zero.

"Bear in mind, however, that this can happen only if the phenotypic differences
between the two groups are caused by an environmental factor that has no
within-group variance at all. Hence, complete hereditarianism about within-group
differences is logically compatible with complete environmentalism about
between-group differences. All right. But Lewontin himself and too many of
his ardent supporters thought that the example proved something much stronger,
namely, within-group heritability is entirely irrelevant for assessing
between-group heritability. This is wrong. As Flynn says: 'the
real message of Lewontin's example is that we can ignore high [heritability]
only if there exists a highly specific and highly unusual set of circumstances. Therefore, it is absurd to
say that high [heritability] estimates
within black and white respectively are irrelevant. Their relevance consists precisely of this: they force us to
look for a plausible candidate for the
role of [X-factor].'" (Flynn 1980: 5859)

Searching for an X-factor, "As both
Flynn and Jensen point out, in reality it may be very difficult
to find a plausible candidate for the role of X-factor. This is because this
factor ought to be uniformly present in one group and uniformly absent in the other group, and furthermore it
should manifest no variation inside either group. For this reason, SES
and educational inequalities (the usual suspects in the puzzle of racial
difference in IQ) are automatically excluded in this kind of scenario
because they obviously have a significant variance within both whites and
blacks. The same is true of some other popular candidates for an X-factor,
and all this shows that the search will by no means be easy. Indeed, high
within-group heritability can so severely
constrain X-factor theorizing as to make this type of environmentalism exceptionally vulnerable to disconfirmation.
This is exactly what Jensen was trying
to demonstrate. And here again he certainly did not argue in favor of the genetic hypothesis by relying
solely on the fact of high within
group heritability of IQ but by also extensively analyzing the empirical credentials of prospective X-factor
hypotheses, and by finding them sorely
wanting."

Some had tried to claim that discrimination or racism could qualify as an
X-factor. But discrimination can only operate through a host of variable
environment factors. The search for an X-factor has not been successful.

Sesardic then discusses Ned Block, "the leading philosophical authority on the
questions of race, IQ, and heritability.", and his attack on The Bell Curve.
Like Lewontin, he first distorts what Herrnstein and Murray actually wrote, then
attacks what they did not saythe typical strawman method increasingly
used by the Left.

In addition, "In that summary Block
mentions
only
three pieces of empirical evidence:
the so-called Flynn Effect, the data about caste-like minorities, and the
relatively small amount of genetic variation between the races. Notoriously,
these are all the data standardly used to support environmentalism. Whereas these data are scrupulously
discussed in
The Bell Curve
and then weighed against the contrary
empirical information, more consistent with hereditarianism, in Block's concise
picture of the controversy there is no
place at all for the evidence that threatens environmentalism."

The above is interesting because Lewontin's oft quoted and anecdotal observation
that there is more variation within a racial group than between racial groups is
quickly biting the dust because of genetic studies and primarily
pharmacogenomicsthe recognition that races vary enough that different medical
treatments are deemed necessary, should put an end to his meaningless argument.
In addition, the so-called Flynn Effect has not been unraveled, as the standard
deviation difference between Whites and Blacks remains. And finally, the
caste-like minority explanation has been a series of just-so stories.

Sesardic treats Lewontin's argument at some length, and points out numerous
errors in his reasoning aside from the emerging field of pharmacogenomics.
Lewontin simply states that there is little genetic differences between races
without offering any support to his assertion. This argument of course has been
around for decades, so it keeps getting repeated as if it has some empirical
meaning.

In addition, "Since Lewontin mentions differences in skin color, a good question
here is: do we expect that the component of interracial genetic variation with
respect to that
trait will be also around 7 percent?
Certainly not. Actually, according to a recent study (Relethford 2002) it is 88
percent. Now the issue we are
addressing is the following: is the distribution
of genetic variance with respect to cognitive abilities more like (1) the case
of skin color, where between-race variation is comparatively high, or like (2) genetic loci examined by Lewontin
and others (Lewontin 1972; Barbujani
et al. 1997), where the average between-group component is comparatively low
(less than 12 percent), or perhaps (3) somewhere in between?
The honest answer is that we just don't know. This is an empirical question, and
drawing inference about cognitive abilities on the basis
of what we know about, say, blood groups is completely unjustified."

Sesardic then turns tables on Lewontin's argument: "Imagine that a hereditarian
counterpart of Lewontin comes upon the scene, and that he undertakes careful
measurement of many environmental influences within groups and between groups.
Suppose that he eventually finds out that in his sample, average environmental
variation in most traits he measured
is much smaller between groups than within groups (say, between-groups variance is 'only' 7
percent of the total variance). He
then starts arguing that this is bad news for environmentalists and that
'spokesmen for various ethnic groups' should be worried because the proportion of between-group environmental
variance is 'surprisingly small,' and
that 'obviously' environmental causes cannot explain the between-group
difference in cognitive abilities.

"It is very clear what is wrong with
this argument. The fact that between-group
environmental differences do not have much impact
on average
does not show that they do not have much
impact on cognitive
abilities. In this context, we recognize the error
immediately, but in the genetic case, although we are dealing with the same
logical fallacy, we are more easily
deceived."

Back to Lewontin's two pots of plants. A plant stuck growing in sand would be
equivalent to a child being raised in a closet. Normal development really wants
to happen, and humans generally have environments that facilitate that growth.
Primate offspring, for millions of years, from ape to man, have been left on
their own and developed quite normally. Virtually every environment today must
be considered an enriched environment compared to say the childhood environment
of 40,000 years ago.

As egalitarians have been massacred by the Jensenist empirical data, they have
turned to an especially insidious argument with regards to motive. That is,
anyone who does research on racial differences in intelligence must be a racist;
therefore their findings can be dismissed as invalid. Sesardic explains it this
way, "The argument of the type
'Mistaken because politically motivated' involves at least three steps: (1) that
person X has a particular political attitude A; (2) that A was the main cause of
X's adopting a scientific belief B; and (3) on the basis of the two previous
steps it is concluded that B is false. It is by no means easy to justify the
first two steps, but as our discussion demonstrates, even if (1) and (2) are
established, (3) does not follow. Proving that someone's belief about scientific
matters has been caused by truth-irrelevant considerations is in itself
irrelevant for the truth of that belief."

Then, from the Left: "'We share a
commitment to the prospect of the creation of a more socially justsocialistsociety. And we recognize
that a critical science is an integral part of the struggle to create that
society.'" (Rose et al. 1984: ix) In short, politics comes before science for
these die-hard Marxists. When we look back, it is obvious that heritability has
been well understood for thousands of years, and as far as I can determine there
has only been one period in time where nave environmentalism dominated in the
biological sciences. Under the committed Marxist Franz Boas (1858-1942), the
field of cultural anthropology was created in academia and packed with
like-minded radicals. Going against common sense, they declared that humans,
unlike any other organism, were free of any genetic influence. The Marxists
dominated academia and the media from about 1930 to 1970 when behavior genetics
began to reassert itself. Now, these egalitarians have fallen back on censorship
rather than modern science.

Science today is also often condemned because of perceived consequencesthe
"consequential fallacy." Sesardic notes, "Philip
Kitcher defends [the consequential fallacy] with the following argument in Vaulting Ambition: 'Everybody
ought to agree that, given sufficient evidence
for some hypothesis about humans, we should
accept that hypothesis whatever its political implications. But the question of
what counts as sufficient evidence is not independent of the political
consequences. If the costs of being wrong are sufficiently high, then it is
reasonable and responsible to ask for more evidence than is demanded in
situations where mistakes are relatively innocuous.'" (Kitcher 1985: 9) Sesardic
takes apart at length Kitcher's assertion. But reasonable people with an
understanding of science realize that truth cannot be based on one's bias (he's
a racisttheory is false) or based on the consequences of the results just
because the results may go counter to a persons political or moral philosophy.

For decades, Whites have been chastised for slavery, oppression, colonialism,
genocide, etc. I know very few Whites who really care one way or the other. They
either don't think about it, or they just say "get over it." For the politically
correct advocates, they would destroy scientific integrity in favor of an
intolerant world where truth is fabricated to meet political goals.

Sesardic exposes the absurdity of anti-racist arguments, "First
of all, the issue about heritability is obviously a purely empirical
and factual one. So there is a strong case for denying that it can affect our
normative beliefs. But it is worth noting that the idea that a certain heritability value could have political
implications was not only criticized for violating Hume's law ["ought"
cannot be derived from "is"], but also for being politically dangerous. Bluntly,
if the high heritability of IQ differences between races really has racist
implications then it would seem that, after all, science could actually
discover that racism is true.

"The danger was clearly recognized by
David Horowitz in his comments on a statement on race that the Genetics Society of America (GSA) wanted
to issue in 1975. A committee preparing the statement took the line that racism is best fought by
demonstrating that racists' belief in the heritability of the blackwhite
difference in IQ is disproved by science.
Horowitz objected: 'The proposed
statement is weak morally, for the following reason: Racists assert that blacks
are genetically inferior in I.Q. and therefore need not be treated as equals.
The proposed statement disputes the premise of the assertion, but not the logic
of the conclusion. It does not perceive that the premise, while it may be mistaken, is not by
itself racist: it is the conclusion drawn (wrongly) from it that is racist. Even
if the premise were correct, the
conclusion would not be justified ... Yet the proposed statement directs its
main fire at the premise, and by so doing seems to accept the racist logic. It
places itself in a morally vulnerable position, for if, at some future time,
that the premise is correct, then the whole GSA case collapses, together with
its case for equal opportunity.'" (Quoted in Provine 1986: 880)

Racism however does seem to be true, if by racism one means that racists prefer
to support and be around people like themselves. Frank Salter's book, On
Genetic Interests, provides the philosophical (and scientific) grounds for
such a stance, and empirical studies on ethnic interests shows that preference
for one's own kind is universalif not always acted upon. It is ironic that
favoritism towards family, including one's ethnic group, is all around us and
yet it is not recognized as a natural component of human behaviornepotism is a
universal practice. If people did not favor those with similar genes, then
nepotism would not exist. Particularism, xenophobia, ethnocentrism, genetic
interests, tribalism, and clannishnessthese are all just synonyms for racism.
As a particularist, I openly embrace universal inegalitarianism while embracing
kin egalitarianism. This is a normative stance that is just as valid as the
socialistequality stance.

Sesardic states, "there is no
a priori
obstacle for an empirically obtained
heritability value having political implications." Given that, racism is fully
justified on empirical grounds because to be a universal egalitarian is
evolutionarily maladaptive. This is just one of numerous recent books that lends
credence to the validity of what Salter calls "universal nationalism." That is,
genetically similar ethnic groups promoting their own interests, while
practicing non-belligerency towards other ethnic groupsrelying on separation to
keep the peace when possible. "First of all, group membership is often a part of
an individual's identity."

Sesardic notes, "The most disturbing
source of racial inequality is invidious discrimination. If members of one
racial group are singled out for special treatment
and systematically denied opportunities to achieve their potential, this is a
social injustice that calls for redress. The moral imperative to abolish this
kind of unfairness is exceptionally pressing. And obviously, if discrimination is the whole story, its
elimination would lead to equality. But
if hereditarianism is true, the moral nature of the situation changes
dramatically. Contrary to what Ryan says, the truth of hereditarianism would indeed introduce a 'moral novelty' of
great consequence. Namely, were it proved that racial inequalities are due to biology, i.e., that
they are not
the result of discrimination, the most
compelling reason to fight these
inequalities would disappear. (Of course, racial inequalities might
be partly genetic and partly due to discrimination, in which case eliminating
discrimination would decrease these inequalities but could not eliminate them completely.) There might be other reasons, of course, that egalitarians could try to use to
continue the fight for complete racial equality,
but in taking that line they should be aware of three things: (1) that they are
thereby switching to a completely new way of defending their political goal, (2) that their momentous
argumentative shift is caused by
nothing else but the empirical triumph of hereditarianism (which invalidates the
discrimination hypothesis), and (3) that they shouldn't be surprised if others
find the egalitarianism with this new moral justification much less convincing or even unacceptable. Surely, a political
movement must expect to lose followers if it replaces the electrifying slogan
'Down with racial discrimination!' with a catch-all and hollow phrase like 'Fight for a more humane social order!'
(the political goal that Ryan
mentions)."

Sesardic then shows how racial
profiling is logical based on Bayes'
theorem of probabilitygiven A, what is the probability of B. "The
point to remember is that when many people say that 'an individual can't be
judged by his group mean' (Gould 1977: 247), that 'as individuals we are all unique and population statistics do not apply' (Venter
2000), that 'a person should not be judged as a member of a group but as an individual' (Herrnstein & Murray
1994: 550), these statements sound nice
and are likely to be well received but they conflict with the hard fact that a
group membership sometimes does matter. If scholars wear their scientific hats
when denying or disregarding this fact, I am afraid that rather than convincing
the public they will more probably damage the credibility of science."

He continues, "Of course, if we knew everything about
a particular individual, then the information about groups to which that individual belongs would fade into
irrelevance. An omniscient god would have no use for Bayes' theorem. We
mortals, however, often have to deal with people about whom we know
relatively little, and in these situations relying on prior probabilities from
group data is epistemically reasonable.

"My example with terrorism
illustrates neatly the application of Bayes' theorem to social groups, but
it is not the best example for a context where heritability might come into play. For this purpose, a better
illustration would be groups with different rates of violent crime, where the
difference might involve at least a
partial genetic explanation. Interestingly, in
cases where groups are recognizably different in some genetic respects and where
the issue of heritability logically arises, our response is not always consistent. For instance, the
biological explanation for the higher incidence of violent crime among men
than among women (and the use of these
data for probability inferences) encounters little ideological resistance, but
the corresponding (and structurally similar) approach in the case of racial groups is considered not just
morally unacceptable but epistemically
defective as well."

Sesardic concludes with his goal for this book, "In
my defense, let me remind you that my goal was not
to offer a comprehensive discussion of the
naturenurture problem. I focused just on a
small segment of that controversy. As a philosopher of science, I found it
interesting to scrutinize very general methodological
arguments that are often used to short-circuit
the debate in the attempt to undermine
one of the rival positions, without going into empirical details at all. And
precisely here is the source of the disparity. It is
only
environmentalists who want to use this kind of
methodological shortcut. Hereditarians are quite happy to let the empirical evidence decide the matter. So the imbalance
of my approach is the result of an existing asymmetry, not of my partiality.

"'Paradoxically, this is a corner of
science where the 'expert' has usually been more wrong than the layman. Ordinary
people have always known that
education matters, but equally they have always believed in some innate
ability. It is the experts who have taken extreme and absurd positions at either
end of the spectrum.' (Ridley 2000: 80)

"'Sensible people reject both the
hereditarian claim that genes explain everything and the environmentalist claim
that they explain nothingthey stand for a reasonable middle ground between
these absurdly simplistic extremes.'
(Paul 1998: 82)

"The postulated symmetry between
'absurd' positions is a historical myth. The extreme position actually existed
only at one end of the spectrum: the environmentalist end. Many experts and
ordinary people have believed that human psychological differences are
exclusively
the result of differences in
environmental influences. On the other hand, no scholar has ever claimed that
all
psychological differences are caused by
genetic differences."

This is an excellent book that almost concludes the naturenurture debate by
showing that the radical environmentalists have had to resort to non-scientific
means to try and stop the genetic juggernaut. One area Sesardic only briefly
covered was the accusation that behavioral genetics is "trivial" because it is
not useful for anything. "The research on heritability has already produced many
surprising discoveries, raised new issues with possibly far-reaching
implications, and stimulated novel ways
of thinking even in the areas of psychology that have nothing to do with genetics. For example,
Judith Harris's book The Nurture
Assumption (Harris 1998)which
challenged the orthodoxy in child psychology and which was called 'a
paradigm shifter' and was predicted to
be 'a turning point in the history of psychology'was actually,
in the author's own words, her 'attempt to solve a puzzle turned up by behavioral geneticists' (Harris 1996). All
these fascinating developments coming
out of heritability research are sometimes hidden from view by the tall weeds of methodological
pseudo-criticism eagerly cultivated by a
number of scientists, philosophers of science, and public intellectuals."

Behavior genetics and related fields can contribute enormously to public policy,
health, international relations, etc. Just one example is the war in Iraq. Had
the Bush administration understood tribalism, had they understood the real
average intelligence of the average Iraqi, etc. we probably would not be in the
mess we are now. Our inability to understand that races do differ both
culturally and genetically made democratizing Iraq seem far too easy.

Another example is education and its high cost. If it were admitted by the
government that there are real genetic differences between races in terms of
what can be expected of them, we would not be wasting time and money on programs
like No Child Left Behind. Our educational system is in shambles because it is
based on radical environmentalism.

But even more seriously is our open border policy, allowing millions of Mexican
Amerindians into the United States. With their average low IQ they will
eventually be another racial burden on the United States along with the Blacks.
The list could go onunderstanding how genes work impacts every aspect of our
livesespecially our love life which is one of my favorite pursuits.
Matt Nuenke--March, 2007.